Kayak Heaven - Trip #3

Trip #3:

This week's launch point was Anderson Cove, on Sooke Basin. Anderson Cove was glassy on arrival and sure didn't foretell the ½ meter (1½ - 2 feet) cresting wave conditions to come out on Sooke Basin.

On the way out of Anderson Cove, we were happy to spot a small seal that surfaced about 20 feet (6 meters) in front of us, looked around, had a good look at us and then submerged again, much to our delight. Then it was out into the basin...

If you want to view the interactive map on
the mapquest.com site, just click this one.

At first, we were gunning for the islands in the middle... the "little islands" turned out to be a good size... in fact, everything about Sooke Basin is much bigger than you think it is going to be from looking at it on a map compared to sitting on it in your kayak... and that was before the winds kicked up and really challenged our paddle abilities.

We were delighted to see dozens of dinner plate sized jelly fish whenever the waves subsided for a few minutes.

A few boats were speeding in and out of the basin at pretty high speed, so we decided not to cross over and to head towards Sooke Harbour instead. We covered a distance of about 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) towards the harbour, fighting strong winds and wave action a lot of the way. The wind was challenging and the waves were exciting and fun. After 2.5 miles we turned around in pretty stiff wind and returned for an overall distance of about 5 miles (8 kilometers) which in these conditions, wasn't half bad.

On the return trip we "surfed" some waves, got soaking wet (as we don't have spray skirts yet) and generally had a great time. When we headed into Anderson Cove we were greeted with the lovely sight of at least a half dozen massive red starfish on the rocks into the cove. The bigger ones looked to be as much as a foot across - quite impressive. Great trip.

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